


Practise To Deceive

by rain_sleet_snow



Series: Pawn Takes Queen [4]
Category: Primeval
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-20
Updated: 2011-08-20
Packaged: 2018-03-07 18:02:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3178017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Becker comes to terms with the fact that he was a jerk to Lorraine a little late, but better late than never.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Practise To Deceive

            The day Christine Johnson was shown the door at the ARC, Lorraine Wickes was not there.

 

            She had been there for the past week of edgy nervousness and increasing sullen mutiny among the staff, working quietly for Christine, keeping her head down, and meeting Becker’s eyes with no shame or fear. That day, though, Lorraine wasn’t present, and Becker had had only a moment to spare for her absence before being sent to fetch the team who had – he discovered – turned a perfectly good safe-house into a chaotic mess full of carnivorous chickens, and then... well, things sort of went from there.

 

            He wouldn’t have bothered to place bets on Lorraine’s knowledge of his own espionage. He didn’t trust her, he _couldn’t_ trust her, and yet he knew that she knew he was wearing a microphone, and he knew who was behind the slip of typed paper tucked into his wallet - the Minister’s private email address - and he knew that she hadn’t given him away. And that meant that Lorraine had successfully bought him time, the one thing he really needed to mend matters and remove Christine Johnson from Lester’s bailiwick.

 

            Well, he also really needed Captain Wilder out of his sight, but Lorraine couldn’t protect him from everything.

 

            And yet, the one day he would have liked Lorraine to be there, just so she could see that he hadn’t fucked up, that he’d made something of the little hints she’d given him and the cover she’d coolly, professionally given him, she wasn’t. It only occurred to him to wonder about that when Lester was back in the office, when the staff were laughing and applauding Lester, and Lester was  standing there with his hands linked behind his back –

 

            And Becker looked around to share his smile with Lorraine Wickes, and she wasn’t there.

 

            That wiped the smile off his face quickly enough.

 

 

            She hadn’t called in sick: he checked. She wasn’t answering her mobile phone: he checked. She wasn’t at home: he checked. He hesitated to call her family, who would probably either panic or get suspicious, but he pulled a few more impersonal strings and badgered Connor Temple. Two days later, with no sight of Lorraine and all avenues of questioning exhausted, Becker had established a) that Lorraine was almost certainly not in London, b) that she had almost certainly not left the country, c) that her flat was locked up for a long absence, and d) that nobody had seemed to notice her disappearance at all. Connor, still happily cleaning out and ‘improving’ every corner of the ARC’s computer systems – two crashes in as many days and three power-cuts, and it wasn’t as if they could afford the downtime after the royal mess Helen had made of the ARC – had hardly noticed she was gone. Quinn and Dr. Page had barely known her. Abby and Jenny had been her friends; their only responses to his enquiries were suspicious stares and silence, or non-committal answers. Most of the rest of the ARC, on seeing Christine Johnson’s reception of her, had clearly written her off as a traitor.

 

            Lester said nothing, and Becker quietly went mad.

 

            He still _cared_ about her. It wasn’t as if he’d stopped loving her when he’d realised she’d lied to him, realised that if she had to she’d double-cross him with her usual gentle ruthlessness, and the rescue she would undoubtedly bring later would sting nearly as much as the original betrayal. Fuck it, he had a lot of conflicted feelings about her and he should probably do something about them before he ended up as a second Stephen Hart – but first, find her, make sure she was safe, and bring her back. Then he could worry about himself.

 

            On the third day he reached out in desperation to her family, claiming to have some of her books still, asking if they’d heard from her. She wasn’t taking his calls and wouldn’t let him into her entry-controlled building, could he drop off the books with them?

 

            What they told him made his heart stutter. 

 

            _We haven’t heard from Lorraine for a week, we don’t expect to for a while. Jac saw her a couple of weeks ago - she said she was... busy, with work. It happens sometimes._ A pause. _Feel free to drop off the books at my chambers. Gray’s Inn. I’m sure you remember._

 

            Becker did, and he’d be taking a copy of _The Ayatollah Begs To Differ_ across there later this week: it wasn’t Lorraine’s strictly speaking, he’d just found it in a bookshop and bought it, thinking she would like it, before being brought up sharp by the remembrance that he couldn’t simply give her things any more. Before remembering that they’d broken it off.

 

            Becker could have returned the book, but he kept it, out of sight and out of mind shoved into the glovebox of his car – except for every time he went for some change to pay a parking meter, or his pass to show the man on duty at the entrance to the ARC car park, or indeed every time he so much as _looked_ at the fucking glovebox. It was still there when he drove to Lester’s flat unannounced, parked two streets across in a shiny, brand-new development of a residential area where his tiny city runaround would go unremarked, and marched across straight into the gleaming glass lobby of Lester’s building.

 

            He bypassed the hatchet-faced concierge; if he looked confident she would probably ignore him in any case. He kept walking, straight over to the lift – the doors opened smoothly when he called it and he went inside, choosing the fourth floor at a wild guess and assuming parade rest. At the fourth floor, he marched out again, then quickly discovered that flat 42 was definitely at least two floors above and made a less dignified dash for the lift. By the time he had reached the flat itself, he was once more perfectly composed.

 

            Becker knocked sharply on the door, and was disconcerted when a teenage girl opened it.

 

            “...Hello,” he said. “I’m looking for James Lester.”

 

            He got a sceptical raised eyebrow almost identical to the one he faced over his boss’s desk at work every morning. “He’s busy right now. Who’s asking?”

 

            “Captain Becker,” Becker said. “I work for him. May I come in?”

 

            “I’ll ask him,” the girl said, and added, after a carefully calculated interval, “sir.” Then she shut the door in his face.

 

            Becker didn’t bother fuming. James Lester’s child and Jon Lyle’s unofficial stepdaughter had no reason to like him – hell, she had no reason to know who he was – and from the stories he’d heard, and from the girl’s stance as she’d barred the door, he was pretty certain that Lester had accidentally raised his own gatekeeper. No wonder she was protective of her father.

 

            The door opened moments later, this time to Lester, still dressed in a suit – but jacketless, tieless and with his sleeves rolled up, which Becker supposed was something resembling a concession to normal life. “Captain Becker. How unorthodox.”

 

            The girl – her name came back to him: Elizabeth – lurked quietly in the background, brown eyes wary, hands tucked into the front pockets of her jeans.

 

            Becker took a breath. “Lorraine Wickes. Dead or alive?”

 

            It took something out of him to vocalise that question and now that it was out in the air he felt dizzy, scared, not least as something resembling alarm flashed in Lester’s eyes. “You’d better come in,” was all Lester said, followed with a sharp glance at Elizabeth. “Liz.”

 

            Liz pursed her lips, and she stared at Becker for a long, assessing moment.

 

            “ _Liz_.”

 

            “Going,” Liz said, enough threat in her words to make it clear that she wasn’t going far. Becker wondered if Lyle had left her with instructions to take care of James, when he went off to Afghanistan.

 

            In any case, the girl went away, and Becker stepped over the threshold. Lester waved a hand at the large, open flat. “Please – make yourself at home.”

 

            “Thank you,” Becker said, doing nothing of the kind.

 

            “Tea? Coffee? Something stronger?”

 

            “Coffee, please.”

 

            Lester turned his back on Becker, putting the kettle on, starting the coffee machine going. Becker wandered over to the floor-to-ceiling window that passed as a wall, and stood looking down into the river glittering with reflected light, down into the city below, still buzzing under the artificial orange glow of streetlamps even as night fell.

 

            He put a hand out to the glass and kept it there until Lester appeared behind him with a cup of coffee in either hand. “My study, Captain?” the older man said, with a raised, questioning eyebrow, and Becker took his hand away from the glass, leaving a silvery-white smudge behind. It would fade away, or be washed away, and in the end Becker would have made no appreciable difference.

 

            Becker spent his entire life making no appreciable difference, an observation that used to make Lorraine raise her eyebrows, curl up into her chair and settle down for debate, hands wrapped around her tea, voice cool with the scholarly, detached edge he rarely heard at work. _Define appreciable_ , she would say, and _Enough to change things_ , he would reply – _as good as Ryan, or Stringer, or Jacobs, as much of a difference as they could make_ – and _Oh, them_ , she would answer, _well, then_ , and she never elaborated. He thought she left it for him to guess or piece together, but maybe he was wrong.

 

            He followed Lester into his small, cramped study and took a seat in the chair he was offered. Lester shut the door and sat himself; coffee was distributed and sipped at. Becker waited for Lester to make the first move.

 

            Lester didn’t bother trying to out-wait him. “Lorraine Wickes,” he said after a moment. “A remarkable woman.”

 

            Becker just nodded.

 

            “And you think she’s dead.”

 

            “I wonder,” Becker said. He knew about the nightmares; he’d tried to comfort her, but it had never seemed to be enough. He also knew about the therapist Lorraine never spoke to, and the Samaritans card stuck to the fridge.

 

            “Well,” Lester said slowly. “I don’t think so.”

 

            Becker let the silence drag.

 

            “It would have been in the news. Woman, 27, takes her own life. Tragedy, mental instability...” Lester’s eyes fall half-lidded. “Alternatively: woman, 27, murdered. Now, the vagaries of the anomaly project don’t allow me to keep as close an eye on the news as I would like, but I’ve seen nothing of the kind.”

 

            Becker leant forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Are you hiding her?”

 

            “Me? No.” Lester sounded both disappointed and mildly irritated. “That would be obvious. Lorraine’s had her own escape routes for years.”

 

            Becker also knew about the small packed case in the boot of her car, and he felt a burst of relief that transmuted rapidly into anger. “I know that. For fuck’s sake, Lester! She’s a member of the ARC, she’s my responsibility! Is she alive? Is she safe? Where is she?”

 

            Lester took a leisurely sip of coffee. “As to the first: I thought we’d established that she is. As to the second: she isn’t sloppy, so yes, I imagine so. As to the third...” His eyes flickered like his daughter’s, quick and calculating. “Who’s asking?”

 

            Becker reined in the impulse to shout ‘Fuck you!’ and storm out. “Me. I thought we’d established that. Where do I look for her?”

 

            “I have no idea.” Lester took another sip of coffee, and reached over calmly to shuffle some papers on his desk. “Have you considered the idea that she doesn’t want to be found?”

 

            “Yes,” Becker said, and meant, _no_.

 

            “Really.” Lester sounded bored. “How about the idea that you won’t be able to find her?”

 

            “Yes,” he said, and also meant _no_. He hadn’t even considered...

 

            A long silence.

 

            “She has a year’s paid leave,” Lester said at last. “She thought that would be enough. We had a deal: she was my eyes and ears in Christine Johnson’s enterprise, and when she passed me the information I needed, I would bring down Christine Johnson and... secure the area.”

 

            “And how’s that working out for you?” He couldn’t stop himself sounding a little bitter.

 

            “Almost done, Captain,” Lester said calmly, setting his coffee aside. “Almost done.”

 

            “Great.” He stood up. “So the rest of us, everyone who cares about Lorraine – we’re high and fucking dry, aren’t we?”

 

            “This is sounding strangely as if it’s all about you, Captain,” Lester observed.

 

            Becker found himself gaping. “I – what – _no_ –”

 

            “Isn’t it? _You_ want to find her. _You_ want to know if she’s safe, when if you knew her at all you would know she can take care of herself.” Lester sighed, looking significantly older than he was. “And _you_ gave up all right to be so solicitous, Captain, when _you_ let her go. Did you think I didn’t notice or realise? I’m not completely stupid, Captain.”

 

            “Oh fuck you,” Becker said, a rush of angry words, but he didn’t go anywhere.

 

            Lester shrugged. “I suggest you take it up with your conscience. And don’t call her, Captain, she’ll call you.”

 

            That was a dismissal, if ever Becker had heard one, and he’d heard a few in his time.

 

***

 

            He spent the weekend thinking, with the aid of a bottle of whisky he would never have touched otherwise.

 

            He and Lorraine... there were a lot of things they hadn’t talked about, it was just that he hadn’t even had a glimpse of the whole spy thing, and most of the rest of it she had let him have flashes and moments of, so he would understand just enough to back off. It was a relationship built, in the first instance, on two minds startled and intrigued to find themselves on the same level, playing chess at the same level with different strategies, reading the same books with a different slant on them, interested in things that were the same, but different. But she had always kept something in reserve, and in failing to understand that despite her warnings and caveats he’d failed her. She had told him, _there are things I can’t tell you yet, just trust me_ : and he’d said he would, said that he understood and assumed over time that that had faded away, and when it had turned out there was something she hadn’t been able to tell him after all he’d had the fucking _gall_ to be shocked. And when she had to go into hiding, he didn’t trust her to look after herself, he searched for her, scratched the surface of her cover – maybe if he’d kept going, if Lester hadn’t cut him down and stopped him he would have put her in danger.

_Immature, demanding, spoilt_ , he told himself, went on a six-mile run, froze himself half to death in a cold shower, and drank gallons of very strong coffee, just in time for the phone call to come from the ARC.

 

            He threw himself into his work and waited.

 

***

 

            At work they talked of Lorraine Wickes in the same vein as Oliver Leek. Becker fumed and did nothing until he caught a few of the administrative staff Lorraine had kept under close watch telling a new member of staff about her, clustered around the coffee machine.

 

            “-always a bit of a snitch-”

 

            “Never could trust her, not really-“  


            “-hardly surprised, she sold us out to _Christine_ sodding _Johnson_ -”

 

            Something in Becker snapped, and before he knew where he was he was standing over them, glowering with an anger he didn’t know he had in him. “If it weren’t for Lorraine Wickes, _Christine sodding Johnson_ would be paying your wages – so shut your _fucking_ mouths, and show some _fucking_ respect!”

 

            He realised only as the echo of his words died that he’d shouted the last few, and that he was looming over people who’d done nothing to deserve it. He bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood, and forced himself to be quieter. “Can I get at the kettle? Please.”

 

            They scattered, and he couldn’t bring himself to be annoyed, either with himself, or with them.

 

            “Bloody ’ell, mate,” Connor Temple said mildly, after a long silence. Becker turned sharply and saw him lurking in the door with an unspeakably filthy mug dangling from his fingers, his expression half-amused, half-taken aback.

 

            “What?” he snapped.

 

            Connor smiled. “You really did love her, didn’t you?”

 

            Becker muttered something incomprehensible even to himself, and saved his scowl for the boiling kettle.

 

***

 

            Lorraine had left almost nothing in his flat, though she’d slept over a hundred times. The book he took to Gray’s Inn and left at her father’s chambers, carefully avoiding her father. A toothbrush, wide-toothed comb and small box of tampons he tucked into the back of his bathroom cupboard. A soft cashmere jumper, almost certainly left behind by accident, he took to Jenny.

 

            “She’ll probably contact you before she contacts me,” he said, reluctantly handing over the jumper to an unimpressed Jenny, lounging obstructively in her doorway. “And I want her to have this. She left it behind and it was one of her favourites.”

 

            Lorraine had had some things of his, too. A couple of t-shirts, a spare pair of boxers, a book or two, a bottle of showergel, a portable chess set and a toothbrush. He didn’t know what she’d done with them, but she had almost certainly not taken them with her; it would be an unthinkable giveaway. They were probably locked up inside her cold, unlit flat. She had told her landlady she would be out of the country for a while.

 

            In the precious moments of downtime from the anomalies, Becker read books – books on chess stratagems, books on the Cambridge Five, books on Cromwellian economics and books on the Balkans – and wrote unsent letters to Lorraine, for lack of anyone else to talk to. For lack of anyone else who understood him.

 

***

 

            Time passed and half the lads came back from Afghanistan. Claire Bradley would be thrilled. Little Mrs Cooper, too. Which was good, because Becker wasn’t sure which of them he was more frightened of, unless it was Liz Lester.

 

            “Thank fuck you’re back,” he told Lyle frankly, throwing a stack of reports at the man and wordlessly indicating the spare seat in his office. “It’s been politics all over the shop since you left. Christine Johnson to the right of us, the Minister to the left of us, Cutter put himself in hospital, Miss Lewis fled a sinking ship, and Miss Wickes turned out to be a double agent playing games for Lester and went into hiding. Also, Temple has new pets that chew wiring. Don’t shoot them even if Norman offers you half his kingdom and his daughter’s hand in marriage, God knows I’ve tried – they’re speedy little buggers and Miss Maitland hates us all enough.”

 

            “Shit, sir,” Lyle said, with an appreciative widening of his eyes. “And you couldn’t have saved some of that for us?”

 

            “Just for that, you can have Cutter-wrangling duties,” Becker said. “Try if you can stop his ex-wife shooting him again. Anyway, the main problem’s dead. Not Cutter, long may he live, but Johnson.” He sighed, leant back in his chair, and scrubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “In other news, Danny Quinn, who you haven’t met, has gone haring off into the past after Helen, and let’s pray the crazy bastard manages to kill her. Temple and Maitland also went into the past and got a bit lost in the Cretaceous, but Dr. Page – Sarah Page: Captain Stringer was chatting her up, last I saw – found them. She thinks she can find Quinn, too.”

 

            “Can she?”

 

            Becker shrugged fatalistically. “If Mrs Cutter came back from the dead, I don’t see what’s stopping Quinn. He’s nearly as obnoxious.”

 

            Lyle made a noise that possibly indicated doubt as he skimmed through the reports, but much could be forgiven of a man who shared houseroom with James Lester and his scarifying child. “And in the middle of all this, sir, you found time to visit Lester.”

 

            Becker flipped a pen in his fingers. “Did he tell you that, or was it his daughter? Who is bloody terrifying, by the way. She must get it from you.”

 

             Lyle just grinned. “Liz told me. She said...”

 

            “Don’t spare my feelings, Lyle. You know I haven’t got any.”

 

            Lyle’s eyes flicked to him. “Funny you should say that, Becker. She said you looked like someone had set you on fire from the heart outwards, and there was nothing left of you but very angry ash. And you’ll excuse me for saying so... sir... but her assessment looks pretty accurate from where I’m standing.”

 

            Wordlessly, Becker raised two fingers. “I didn’t suspect her of being a poet.”

 

            “She says what she sees.”

 

            Becker ran a hand through his hair. “I told you we’d had a shitty time of it, but so have you lot.”

 

            A very long pause.

 

             “What happened to Miss Wickes?”

 

            “I told you. She was Lester’s double agent.”

 

            “The gen said she wasn’t a field agent when she was at Thames House...”

 

            Becker pressed his lips together. “She made a pretty good field agent for someone with no practice. I’d probably be dead if she hadn’t.”

 

            “So where is she now?”

 

            “Keeping her head down. Where, I couldn’t tell you.”

 

            Lyle sat back in his chair, badly concealed surprise on his face. “She didn’t leave any word?”

 

            “None whatever. Four months without so much as a murmur, in case you’re interested, but Lester doesn’t seem worried.” He crashed back to reality, and an understanding of how close he was to confiding in someone who had spent the first six months of their working relationship actively hating him. “You’re cluttering up my office, Lieutenant. Also, I have to go and grovel to Miss Maitland, I shot something small and fluffy yesterday.”

 

***

 

            The letter took Becker entirely by surprise: he opened it by accident, in a haze of exhaustion and Ditzy’s little pills, with a new flesh wound on his arm itching like the devil, and didn’t realise until the top was ripped open that it wasn’t addressed to him, but someone called Eliza Yeats.

 

            To the best of Becker’s knowledge, no Eliza, Yeats or otherwise, had ever lived in his flat. He flipped over the envelope, and saw that it was clearly addressed to the flat in firm, familiar handwriting. He glanced at the letter he’d pulled out, feeling hazily guilty, and saw that it was lovely, creamy paper with a letterhead at the top: simple black capital letters.

 

_ROSE RICHARDS_

_WEDNESDAY COTTAGE_

_CLEETON PARVA_

_DY15 6YT_

 

            ...Richards. Becker blinked, struggling to clear his head. Richards. Lorraine had mentioned that name, called him a colleague, efficient, effective and quick off the mark, and he’d been surprised. Why had he been surprised?

 

            The name Richards connected itself to the name Niall and the rank of Corporal, and Becker sat down rather sharply. Ah. Blade, the regimental psychopath who liked close work. Yes, he’d been surprised that Lorraine liked him, couldn’t even think of circumstances in which she might have met him, but apparently – before he’d disappeared, and most likely died – he’d played a really good game of chess.

 

            Becker decided to double-check the gen that had said Lorraine was never a field agent.

 

            He glanced at the handwriting, and blinked again. He knew that textbook elegant loop of the g, didn’t he? He got up, fished a book off his shelves, and opened it to the front inside cover.

 

            _Dear Hilary, Happy Christmas 2007, Lorraine._

 

            He looked at the book and then the letter, and the book and the letter again, and brought the letter right up close to his eyes as if that would make it give up its secrets. Then he dropped the book and grabbed the letter in both hands, scanning its lines frantically.

_Dear Eliza-_

_Sorry it’s taken me so long to write to you, but I’ve had some trouble settling in. It took the locals a little while to warm up to me, although I think I’m now a reasonably friendly presence. It helps that I understand cricket – there’s a very enthusiastic local team here. Did you ever think Harry’s lessons would come in useful? No, me neither..._

_I hope I didn’t worry you when I went away.  I know you’ve been concerned for me after Niall got himself blown to kingdom come, but I’ve been a good girl, going to a therapist weekly and everything..._

 

            Becker read on with increasing astonishment, and then went and poured himself a glass of whisky before thinking about it any more. The handwriting was definitely Lorraine’s, although the signature and tone were completely unlike her, and she appeared to be writing from a background totally unlike her own. Furthermore, she appeared to have appropriated Niall Richards’ name. Becker had to hand it to her: she had balls.

 

            “You poor bastard,” Becker said to the gentleman in question, pouring another drink on the strength of it, “I feel sorry for you.”

 

            He finished the second drink and set the glass aside, reading slowly through the letter once more. _Don’t call her_ , Lester had said, _she’ll call you_. And she had. This was a ticket into the life she’d made herself; presumably she thought it was safe for him to come and find her six months into her self-enforced isolation, but she’d given him a run-down of her cover just in case.

 

            And did he want to go and find her? Oh _fuck_ yes, Becker thought, throat dry and eyes suddenly stinging; he scrubbed them furiously, shocked by the strength of his own feelings, and took several shuddering deep breaths, face pressed into his hands.

 

            “She’s alive,” he muttered. “She’s _alive_.” As if galvanised, he got up and put the glass in the sink and the bottle away, binned the envelope and tucked the letter into his wallet, folded over and over again, before going to take an extremely hot shower and get something to eat.

 

            Becker hadn’t quite believed James Lester when he’d said that there would have been something said if Lorraine had been killed; he’d kept an obsessive watch on local news sites and seen nothing, but surely if it looked like natural causes – an accident, an illness – no-one would have batted an eyelid. He’d tried to console himself with the knowledge that Lorraine was very good at what she did, but he was supposed to be very good at what he did, too, and he knew from bitter experience that there was always someone better than him. Lester had been able to offer him no concrete reassurance, and he’d sat through weeks, months of waiting with not a mention of her name from anyone else that wasn’t an insult.

 

            He’d started to think...

 

            He wasn’t entirely surprised when he started crying stinging, hot tears of relief over his microwave meal.

 

***

           

            Cleeton Parva was a small village with a newish housing development full of young families, all presumably commuters, at one edge. Becker got lost in this for half an hour, which rendered him foul-tempered. The drive had been extremely long, and the extra delay wore on his nerves, so much so that he almost snapped at a careless nanny who let her charge run in front of his car. Thankfully, however, she gave him directions to Wednesday Cottage, on the other side of the village, so he was inclined to forgive her – until he realised he couldn’t follow her directions for toffee, and went round the village three times in succession trying to make them work, sulking. Eventually, he gave up, parked in the village pub’s car park, and went in to ask for directions.

 

            The pub had transformed itself into a gastropub, one of the clean, warm and friendly variety with prices verging on the Londonesque, and he was accosted by a waiter almost the moment he walked in. “Table for one, sir? Afraid we’re a bit busy, but give it five minutes–”

 

            “No thank you,” Becker said firmly. “I’m looking for a house – Wednesday Cottage?”

 

            “I don’t live round here. Try Bethany at the bar.” The waiter jerked his head at the bar and the bleached damsel presiding over it, and Becker thanked him and went in the direction indicated.

 

            Bethany favoured him with a broad smile. “Hi. Can I help?”

 

            “Um, yeah. I’m looking for Wednesday Cottage. A friend of mine lives there. Rose Richards?”

 

            “Oh, yeah, I know Rose,” Bethany said, eyeing him with slight wariness. Becker had been prepared for this: Lorraine’s letter had contained a line about _Jacob’s stopped harassing me, I don’t think he knows where I am_.

 

            “Hilary Becker,” he said. “She might have mentioned me?”

 

            Bethany shook her head, relaxing slightly. “She doesn’t talk about anyone, really, and she doesn’t get visitors. You can’t blame her, poor bloody woman. Anyway: Wednesday Cottage.” She came out from behind the bar and went to the pub entrance – Becker followed her. She pointed over at the village church, just across a small green and partially obscuring the village shop: a lane was barely visible. “It’s down there, in the middle of the row.”

 

            “Thanks,” Becker said, giving her a relieved smile, and was surprised to encounter a very hard stare.

 

            “Don’t give her a hard time,” Bethany ordered.

 

            “I won’t,” Becker said.

 

            “Good,” Bethany said menacingly.

 

            Becker thanked her for the directions and headed off in the direction of Wednesday Cottage. He crossed the green, paused briefly to examine the war memorial and think for a second, and then kept going, on into the dark little lane by the village shop, where Wednesday Cottage stood. It was one of three brick-built houses with smallish, south-facing gardens and no front drives (the others, inexplicably, being Monday and Sunday), and Becker squeezed between the cars parked nose to tail beside the vestigial pavement to get to Lorraine’s front doorstep. He didn’t recognise any of them; presumably Lorraine’s was elsewhere. He imagined Lester had had it taken off the road.

 

            He went up to the front door, painted a cheerful shade of blue with panes of frosted glass and the word WEDNESDAY in brass letters just next to it, and – after a moment’s indecision – pressed the front doorbell and waited.

 

            He saw a shadow behind the frosted glass, and then Lorraine Wickes opened the door to him.

 

            Becker licked his suddenly dry lips, and refused the temptation to grab her and crush her to his chest. One, it would go down very badly, two, he was playing a part the same as she was and it would be an unwelcome ad-lib, and three, she almost certainly had a gun tucked into the waist of her jeans.

 

            “Rose?” he said at last. “Rose Richards?”

 

            “Captain Becker.” Her voice shook. “I...”

 

            “I’m sorry, I know you probably weren’t expecting this. I can go, if you’d like – I just wanted to see that you were all right after Niall died, and Eliza said you were having some trouble...”

 

            Lorraine flinched. “Yes. I see.” She composed herself. “You’d better come in.”

 

            He followed her into the house and wiped his shoes neatly off on the doormat.

 

            “Make yourself at home,” she said calmly. She’d changed her appearance: more than her usual subtle minimum of make-up and jewellery, hair was out of the usual neat braids, with a thin silky scarf tied round her head like a grown-up’s Alice band, and she was dressed in a loose floral blouse over a plain white t-shirt and dark skinny jeans he would never have suspected her of wearing. She was wearing new reading glasses, similarly utterly different from her previous, non-descript pair which she had lost more often than she’d worn.

 

            “How did I do? Standing ovation or rotten tomatoes?” he countered, hanging his coat up on the pegs in the hall.

 

            She smiled involuntarily. “An encore or two,” she allowed. “You got my letter?”

 

            “Would I be here if I hadn’t?” Becker glanced around the house; smallish, but friendly and warm-looking, not as cool and airy as Lorraine’s own flat, in London. “Rose? And what did you do to that poor bastard Niall Richards to warrant taking his name?”

 

            “Poor bastard? Niall was perfectly capable of defending himself from me,” Lorraine said, a hint of laughter in her voice. “And I always liked the name Rose.”

 

            He shrugged. “Fair enough.”

 

            “Tea? Coffee?”

 

            “Tea, please.”

 

            They went into the kitchen, which was in similarly warm colours, and which looked as if Lorraine had been using the space and time available to her to indulge in a taste for cookery. There was a large dining-room/conservatory sort of space, which looked as if it was meant to make up for a slightly cramped kitchen, and one end of the table was weighed down with papers, books and a laptop.

 

            Lorraine put the kettle on, and fetched down mugs; he leaned back against the counter and watched her work.

 

            “It’s good to see you again,” he said at last. “I mean, I don’t know if I have the right to tell you that any more. I was a complete arsehole. But – it’s good to see you again.”

 

            Lorraine’s movements stilled for a moment, and then she carried on. “I was worried you would think I was dead.”  


            “I wondered,” Becker admitted. “I all but broke down Lester’s door trying to find out if he knew if you were safe. His daughter put me in my place.”

 

            Lorraine half-laughed. “She’s special like that. If you think she’s frightening you should hear her mother... How are things? At the ARC?”

 

            “Fine. Better than they would have been if you and Lester hadn’t brought Christine Johnson down. Lyle’s back, and the rest of his miserable lot. Stringer broke a leg, but he’s back in action this week, that’s how I got leave to come up here. Lester’s fine – sour as ever. Temple continues to be clueless, Miss Maitland continues to be the object of combined hopeless lust, awe and terror, and Dr. Page hasn’t blown herself up yet, despite her best efforts. Oh, and she thinks we can get Quinn back – he wandered off through an anomaly, after Helen.”

 

            “Oh he _didn’t_.” Lorraine sighed.

 

            “He did,” Becker said, with a sort of grim schadenfreude.

 

            “That man,” Lorraine said, very mildly considering that she’d once almost shot Quinn through the head for falling through her office ceiling.

 

            “God, I know, but what can you do with him?” Becker ran a helpless hand through his hair. “Anyway. How are you, Rose?”

 

            “I’m fine,” Lorraine said neutrally, passing him a cup of tea and taking a seat at the clear end of the dining table. “Writing a book.”

 

            He sat down opposite her. “What about?”

 

            “War profiteering in the First World War.” She hid a grin, probably at the slightly stunned look on his face. “I wrote my dissertation on black markets, it’s not as out there as you might think. I’m nicely plugged into village life, now – I go to all the home cricket games, I politely dodge the local Colonel Blimp and his wife who keep thinking they might have known the late Mr. Richards –”

 

            Becker snorted; Lorraine smiled elliptically.

 

            “-and, this will make you laugh, I am a stalwart of the local church.”

 

            Becker choked on a gulp of tea and coughed and spluttered hopelessly for several minutes. “ _You_?”

 

            “Yes, I know.” Lorraine stared into her cup of tea. “Who’d look for Lorraine Wickes in a church? But Rose Richards, recently widowed...” She held up her left hand, with a plain gold band on her fourth finger. “...and in danger of losing her faith? Where else?”

 

            Becker’s mouth twisted and he nodded in acknowledgement, trying to hide the unpleasant twist of his stomach that seeing someone else’s ring on Lorraine’s finger had brought on, even if she’d bought it for herself, as he suspected. “What did you do to Niall Richards? I presume the poor bugger’s dead after all, not just missing?”

 

            “He wasn’t dead when I left him,” Lorraine said, “but he had a lot of knives and a gun with one bullet left, not to mention several wounds that should have been immediately fatal, so I’d be shocked if he wasn’t.”

 

            Becker couldn’t stop himself laughing. “You were never just a desk agent, were you? Of all the long cons.”

 

            Lorraine bit her lip, but smiled. “I wasn’t very suited to it. The strain got to me, which Niall never understood. It was... very quiet, and I wasn’t originally supposed to be involved, and when I _was_ involved I wasn’t meant to be in the field, but – the field came to me.” She shrugged, and sipped at her tea. “Niall was a valuable colleague. He taught me a lot.”

 

            “Only a colleague?” Becker asked. He felt a lot calmer about Niall Richards than he had about the ring, possibly because he knew the man was dead, possibly because if the man had been alive and thought he had a claim on Lorraine’s affections, Becker wouldn’t have survived the week.

 

            “No,” Lorraine acknowledged a little coolly. “We weren’t always strictly professional, but it wasn’t what you might call a relationship.” She hesitated. “It was nothing like what we had, you and I. We only ever talked about the job.” She untied and retied the scarf around her hair, as close as she ever got to fidgeting. “And, er, finding a convenient flat surface. It was all very adrenaline-driven and spontaneous.”

 

            “Unlike us?” Becker prodded.

 

            “Yes, unlike us, but... like us, at the same time. I meant to fall for people, before. I actually thought about it. With Niall I didn’t realise quite what was happening until – there was a heated incident that... made things clear. And with you... I didn’t realise until I asked if you wanted to continue a conversation over dinner, and that... made things clear.” She shook her head. “But anyway, none of this is relevant.”

 

            “No,” he agreed, feeling a little dejected.

 

            “I used Niall’s name because he was always telling me to watch my back more carefully, and because I knew of one or two people who would – give me a little colour, for my story.” She twisted the ring on her finger.  “And besides, if he’d got married, suddenly and quietly, before he died – people would just put it down to another weird thing about him. As for Rose... I’ve worked her out after, what is it, six months? Six months of living in her skin. She’s a hopeless romantic. She married him because it seemed like the right thing to do, like what would happen in a story.”

 

            Becker hummed, not committing himself to anything, and finished his tea. The silence grew.

 

            Becker dropped his head into his hands and admitted defeat. “I’m sorry, Lorraine. I was a complete fucking arse and I don’t know why you didn’t shoot me. You warned me there were things you couldn’t tell me and I didn’t listen to you, and then when it turned out to be true, I lost it. I abandoned you when you needed me. Fuck, I’m sorry.”

 

            Lorraine said nothing for a moment.

 

            He lifted his head and tried to catch her eye. “Lorraine? Do you want me to go?”

 

            She shook her head, and then cleared her throat and finally spoke. “I thought – I thought if you ever said anything like that to me, it would be... I don’t know, I don’t feel triumph or anything like it, and I don’t know if I should. I mean...”

 

            Becker reached behind him, rocking back on his chair, and retrieved a tissue box, which he passed to Lorraine. She blew her nose and gave him a nod of thanks, then shut her eyes for a long moment and shook her head. “I... Oh, just... Come here, Hilary. Please. I want a hug from someone who knows who I am.”

 

            Becker hated his name, but there were worse ways to hear it than on her lips. She stood up, and he joined her, and she wrapped her arms around him and rested her head against his shoulder. He put his arms around her and shut his eyes, and thought that maybe when he opened them they’d be back in his flat with a chessboard between them and books strewn around them, except that only happened in shadow-worlds and fairy-stories, and sure enough when he opened his eyes and when they let go of each other they were still in Wednesday Cottage and their problems were still theirs to solve.

 

            “God, I miss you,” he said with feeling. “And also, we’re somewhat fucked up, have you noticed?”

 

            Lorraine started to laugh.

 

 

**About the author of _oh! what a lovely war: profit and patriotism in the first world war_ (2011, HarperCollins)**

 

Rose Richards took her BA in Economics at Trinity College, Cambridge, and wrote her first book in a year’s break between civil service jobs. She now works in the Treasury, and lives in London, with her partner and an ever-increasing collection of chessboards and books.

 

Rose Richards is a pseudonym.


End file.
